Companies can’t ignore human and environmental aspects of IT anymore

The first feelings that IT systems invoke are mechanical and technical and for too long companies have been focusing on these two aspects, but a new study says human and environment aspects are very important as well and companies can’t ignore them any longer.

According to the study co-authored by a researcher at Binghamton University, State University of New York, mood and personality play an important role in how companies should manage their IT systems and these two play a huge role in the overall efficiency of such systems.

Researchers explain that mood and personality traits of software development professionals affect how they report on self-committed errors in IT projects and even a minor glitch in design or programming can have devastating consequences. Researchers suggest that IT errors are caused by a combination of factors and because of that it is important to adopt various procedures to identify inefficiencies, ineffective care and preventable errors to make improvements associated with the IT systems. And, it is important to look at individuals working on information technology teams.

According to the paper published in the Information Systems Journal current research on IT error reporting mainly explores the issues related to resources and technology, such as budget shortages, hardware malfunctions or labor shortages.

The paper also states IT managers should emphasize to their employees the benefits of reporting self-committed because, ultimately, IT errors that go unreported could hurt the company more in the long run. Authors say that employees should be cognizant how on their mood could impact their reporting decisions. The paper also looks at how the personality trait conscientiousness can influence error-reporting decisions.